VMware Cloud Community
JorHan
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Recover VMFS partition table ... help.

Hi All

This morning when i boot ESXi 4.0.0, I found lost a VMFS volume. By default my Disk has two partitions. I tried to recover the second partition with the instructions on the forum but it still not worked.

fdisk -lu /dev/disks/t10.ATA_____ST3500418AS_________________________________________9VM6Z8Y1

Disk /dev/disks/t10.ATA_____ST3500418AS_________________________________________9VM6Z8Y1: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

                                                                               Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/disks/t10.ATA_____ST3500418AS_________________________________________9VM6Z8Y1p1            63   8386622   4193280    6  FAT16
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary
/dev/disks/t10.ATA_____ST3500418AS_________________________________________9VM6Z8Y1p2       8386623 976773167 484193272+  fb  VMFS


fdisk -u /dev/disks/t10.ATA_____ST3500418AS_________________________________________9VM6Z8Y1

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 60801.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): d
Partition number (1-4): 2

Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table

fdisk -u /dev/disks/t10.ATA_____ST3500418AS_________________________________________9VM6Z8Y1

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 1409485.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): n
Command action
   e   extended
   p   primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 2
First sector (8386623-976773167, default 8386623): Using default value 8386623
Last sector or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (8386623-976773167, default 976773167): Using default value 976773167

Command (m for help): t
Partition number (1-4): 2
Hex code (type L to list codes): fb
Changed system type of partition 2 to fb (VMFS)

Command (m for help): x

Expert command (m for help): b
Partition number (1-4): 2
New beginning of data (8386623-976773167, default 8386623😞 8386688

Expert command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered!

Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.

I login VL and go to Configuration > Storage >Refresh this volume not return.

Please help me!!!.

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
a_p_
Leadership
Leadership
Jump to solution

This sounds really strange. Did you have any partitions on these 4 disks when you first installed ESXi?

Which version of ESXi did you initially install (3.5 or 4.0) in case this system has been upgraded?

Please post the output of fdisk -lu for all 4 disks in the system.

André

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
8 Replies
idle-jam
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

Do you have access to vmware support? i would advise having them fix for you as any wrong steps would destroy the whole datastore

Reply
0 Kudos
a_p_
Leadership
Leadership
Jump to solution

Basically I agree with idle-jam, call VMware support if his is important data!

To help you here in the forum, we first need to understand your setup. What's the purpose of the 2 partitions? Where did you get the start sector (you entered) from? Usually a partition table is not altered automatically, does any other OS (e.g. Windows) have access to this disk/partition?

André

Reply
0 Kudos
JorHan
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Thanks idle-jam and André for reply.

When i setup ESXi server, i have four HDD and when the setup finished each drive has two partitions: one is fat one is vmfs. As i know the second partition ( formating VMFS) is storing my data, but now i think it lost partition table, I tried to recover with this guide.

http://www.virtualizationteam.com/virtualization-vmware/vmware-vi3-virtualization-vmware/vmware-esx-...

In this guide, new beginning of data is 63 and move to 128 but in my disk the vmfs partition start at 8386623

Please help me in this case...

Reply
0 Kudos
a_p_
Leadership
Leadership
Jump to solution

This sounds really strange. Did you have any partitions on these 4 disks when you first installed ESXi?

Which version of ESXi did you initially install (3.5 or 4.0) in case this system has been upgraded?

Please post the output of fdisk -lu for all 4 disks in the system.

André

Reply
0 Kudos
JorHan
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hi André

Attachment is output fdisk -lu

I had problem with disk

dev/disks/t10.ATA_____ST3500418AS_________________________________________9VM6Z8Y1

Jorhan

Reply
0 Kudos
a_p_
Leadership
Leadership
Jump to solution

Just to make sure:

You write "I had problem with disk" and you marked the question as answered. Before digging deeper, was this done accidentally or were you able to solve the issue?

André

Reply
0 Kudos
JorHan
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

sorry André, my English skill is not good. I still try to solve this issue and get back data but not yet.

Jorhan.

Reply
0 Kudos
a_p_
Leadership
Leadership
Jump to solution

I still don't understand why there is a FAT16 partition, but that may be another story!?

Anyway, from the output of fdisk everything looks like it probably should. What I am confused about is, why you configured another start sector for the partition (although it's not displayed with fdisk)

from your first post:

Expert command (m for help): b
Partition number (1-4): 2
New beginning of data (8386623-976773167, default 8386623): 8386688

Where did you get this number from? Why didn't you leave it at 8386623? Did you try a rescan with the default start sector before modifying it?

André

Reply
0 Kudos